The purpose of this study is to investigate how women professionals with small children cope with inter-role conflict, and how coping influences the relationship between the stress of conflicting role demands, psychological adjustment and role functioning over time. The specific objectives of the present study are the following: 1) to learn more about those characteristics of women professionals and their environments which lead to the experience of inter-role conflict; 2) to explicate the coping processes used by these women to organize and integrate conflicting role demands, and maintain satisfactory role performance; 3) to further our understanding of the relationships between stress, coping and mental health. The objectives of this study will be addressed in two phases. In the first phase, we will conduct focus group interviews with women professionals to identify factors associated with the experience of inter-role conflict, and the process of coping with it. Three types of professional women will be interviewed: college professors, physicians and middle-level managers. In the second phase of the proposed study, we will conduct individual interviews with 20 women in each of the three professions. Data will be collected from these women at four points in time, and from their husbands at two points, over a six and one-half month period. This number and frequency of interviews will allow us to monitor their coping processes over time, and to examine in greater depth how they generate, integrate, organize and balance multiple life roles. The expected benefits of the proposed study include: 1) increased knowledge of the determinants of inter-role conflict and the factors affecting how frequently and intensely it will be experienced by women professionals who are also wives and mothers; 2) expanded understanding of the determinants of coping, the coping process, how women professionals cope with problems in several life domains simultaneously, and the efficacy of various coping strategies for resolving inter-role conflict, including anticipatory coping; 3) more precise delineation of the influence of coping on the relationship between stress and psychological adjustment.